|
Andrew Gunn
The Australian
7 March 2003
“Bulk-billing the rich”
There is nothing odd about Labor fighting for those on high incomes to
have access to bulk-billing (Dennis Shanahan, Comment, 6/3). When
high-income earners require a service, they demand a certain standard
and that’s one reason that it’s beneficial to have the wealthy in public
hospitals and bulk-billing clinics.
It costs high-income earners more in tax dollars, a percentage of their
income, to support universal public healthcare, than it costs them to be
covered privately, even with out-of-pocket costs. The opposite is true
for those less well off.
Safety nets in healthcare do not work. A 1973 study in SA, prior to the
institution of Medibank and Medicare, found that failure to pay
healthcare bills was the commonest cause of imprisonment for debt.
Two-tiered systems might work for the wealthy. They don’t work for
anyone else.
Letters Index |
